FaithHopeLove: Landon's RSV/Flu/Pneumonia Journey Part. 4.

This part will cover Landon's third week and the few days that almost led to a fourth week and more of what was going through my mind as he was healing.

Tuesday, January 22: Landon was now on high flow oxygen meaning no more ventilator at all. The doctor wanted to keep him in the PICU until Landon was tolerating the high flow oxygen well. Once they knew he would tolerate it well they would begin weaning. However when they listened to Landon his left lung sounded raspy and they thought they would do an X-Ray. Thankfully they did not an X-Ray and they start albuterol treatments and his lung cleared up. Landon's oxygen stats kept dropping below 90 every time they would try to wean him off the oxygen. Landon just was not ready to wean from the oxygen. He really was taking it slow. At this point I was still dealing with a little bit of depression and really wanting to be alone and I even went to the extreme of deactivating my Facebook for a few hours (causing many people to worry about me). I just wanted nothing to do with anybody. Every time I saw pictures of babies/children it was a reminder to me that my newborn was and my toddler was in Ohio. It was a reminder to me that I was missing out on caring for my babies. It felt like a slap in the face every time I went to Facebook. I took time away to be alone.

Wednesday, January 23: I woke up thinking to myself...my birthday is in 4 months (May 23) and I would be 26. Not sure why this was the first thought in my head but it was. Landon was on 60% oxygen...they tried decreasing again to 50% but his oxygen stat kept going below 90 so they had to up it to 60 again. He just was not tolerating going below 60% for some reason. And he was on 8 liters of oxygen flow. They wanted him at 2 liters before taking him off the feeding tube. He was still in the PICU. I hated seeing his oxygen stat drop because every time it did his machine would beep and the nurse would rush in. Later this day I began getting out of the funk I was in. I began to feel a little better. I got to give Landon a bath and even put him in his own clothes from home!

Thursday, January 24: We got the good news that Landon was being moved from the PICU to Pediatric Progressive Care Unit. It was a step down from the PICU but still more intensive that a room out on the floor. In the PCU they would continue to do what the PICU was doing and decreasing his oxygen. And this news came on Landon's 7 week birthday. He was 7 weeks old! We got to stay in Landon's room with him so we did not need a sleep room or a hotel which was awesome!

Friday, January 25: Landon was not a fan of having his blood pressure taken every so often. They had set to take it automatically. They tried reducing his oxygen flow again but he did not tolerate it well. It was down to 5 liters of flow at 50%. He needed to be at 2 liters (I thought 6 but was wrong) for him to come off the feeding tube.It is hard for babies to swallow when they have so much air being pushed through their nose so the flow of air had to be lower. He seemed to be going down a liter a day but the percentage stayed the same because he just did not tolerate the percentage dropping. He was taking his merry old time but we had been saying slow and steady wins the race. We didn't want to rush him and cause more issues. They ended up taking Landon back up to 6 liters of flow due to not tolerating the wean well. We got to hold Landon more since he was out of the PICU. That was really good for him and for us!

Saturday, January 26: Not much happened. They lowered Landon's oxygen flow to 5 liters again at 35% of oxygen. This stayed this way all day. They just wanted him to rest.

Sunday, January 27: They did nothing to his oxygen. They wanted Landon to rest since the doctor had a big plan for him for Monday.

Monday, January 28: It officially was three weeks on this day that Landon had been hospitalized. Landon was on 21% oxygen (basically room air) at 5 liters of flow. They planned to get it down to 4 liters today and do a swallow test to make sure he can swallow since he was intubated and also on the feeding tube. He was taking a pacifier like a champ so he can still suck which is good. Throughout the day they reduced the flow of oxygen. They were able to put him on a different nose prong and was at 1 liter of flow of oxygen. I also was able to hold him on my chest which was extremely great for the both of us.

Tuesday, January 29: They were able to turn off Landon's oxygen completely and they turned off the feeds through the feeding tube and he was able to eat from the bottle. It was a little rough at first but he did great! They also moved Landon from PCU to a regular room on the floor.

Wednesday, January 30: After 3 weeks and 2 days, Landon was ALL better and he was released from the hospital at 9:30 a.m.! We were on the road home at 10 a.m. and we got home at 11:45 a.m.! Landon was really fussy but we think it was because he got used to hospital life plus he might have been more hungry than usual. Even though he was really fussy all afternoon/evening, he slept great Wednesday night. We got home we had to clean out our refrigerator...boy was it stinky with lots of spoiled food.

This is the end of Landon being in the hospital. My next post will be about his recovery and first few days back home. I am so very glad we are home. It was a long 3 weeks! He is more settled now and he is not as fussy through the day/night. He is just about back on his normal schedule. He is eating a little more than he did before he got sick but he is 4 weeks older than what he was when he went in. Logan will be coming home this Friday and I will write about his homecoming when he gets home. I plan to make Logan coming home a big deal. Logan has definitely missed us and we have missed him!

Here are some pictures of the last week of Landon's hospital stay: